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Thursday, February 15, 2018

FIDE Bank Account Frozen

Alert reader Daniel Belasco point out yesterday that FIDE's bank account has been frozen by its Swiss bank. The action was taken over alleged Assad links and sanctions by the US Treasury against FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, who has unsuccessfully tried several times to be removed from the list. Back in 2015 Ilyumzhinov, a Russian multimillionaire and politician, was added to a US Treasury Department sanctions list for allegedly materially assisting and acting for or on behalf of the government of Syria. Obviously this is going to severely damage FIDE's business activities and they will have some problems that will affect the international chess world. For the complete story visit Chessbase's website. I have to agree with a couple of comments on Chessbase regarding this development. As one poster pointed out, as far as we know the FIDE account is not Ilyumzhinov's personal account. He also asked, have any FIDE funds been misappropriated by Ilyumzhinov? And finally, what right does the US have to dictate how Swiss banks conduct business? For details on the US sanctions against Syria you can visit the US Treasury Department HERE. Additional reading: Banking in Switzerland and How Swiss Bank Accounts Work